A Streetcar Named Desire Review

07 Jul A Streetcar Named Desire Review

Check out this review from our 2008 production of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” This review, by David Marlowe, shows just how excited we are to have so many of the original cast returning for our upcoming production!

David Marlowe:

A Streetcar Named Desire

Vintage Theatre: 8/22-9/21

It is thrilling to be able to report that “A Streetcar Named Desire” is exponentially better in all aspects than any previous production, which this reviewer has seen at Vintage. Haley Johnson is only twenty-three years old. How then is it possible that she makes one feel more than most of the age appropriate women one has seen play the role of Blanche DuBois? Ms. Johnson is a superb actor. Her incremental descent into madness is exquisitely delivered. Craig A. Bond has done yeoman’s work directing this play. Bond’s casting of Kurt Brighton as Stanley is a stroke of genius. Brighton is a balding muscular young man with just the right blend of arrogance and rage. Linda Williams gives us a strong reality-based Stella who accepts her World War II veteran husband and his rowdy carousing buddies with all their mental and emotional disabilities. Nick Kargel’s scenic design is a wonder. With it the artist gives us a fragmentary illusion of the Kowalskis’ squalid apartment. While the fragments are filled in with larger set pieces, the slats in the French shutters allow us to be privy to neighborhood occurrences outside as well as being able to see characters eavesdropping on those inside the apartment. Ray Berry’s sound design is exquisitely sensitive. The delicate music employed to give us the subjective reality of Blanche’s excruciating mental anguish is masterful. Bonnie MacLachlan’s costume design succeeds beautifully. The lighting by Jen Orf greatly enhances the production.